Color Pop Movie Ticket Display

I’ve been saving the movie ticket stubs from all of Trey’s and my movie date nights from the past year or so. I wouldn’t say that going to the movies is the only thing we enjoy doing together, far from it, but we certainly go a lot considering. We both LOVE movies. And I’d love to say we mainly focus on small, art films, but the truth is we love blockbusters, comedy, and sci-fi just as much if not more. 🙂 So, I started saving all our movie ticket stubs. I didn’t really have a clear idea of what I was going to do with them. But I figured if nothing else, it would be fun to tuck this year’s stubs away in the back of our photo album from the year. But, I really wanted to find a unique way to display them in our home as well, so I kept that in the back of my mind as I started collecting.

Over the past year, as we’ve moved into and started to decorate our home, there have been plenty of areas that I’ve realized need some attention. The space above our record player was one of those places. So I started to dream up how I could use our movie ticket stub collection to create something interesting to go in that space. For this project, we also partnered with our friends at Canon USA to make my color pop ticket stub display. I used my Canon PIXMA MG7720 to scan and print the images for the display (no camera required for this one!). I mostly use the scanner on my printer for work-from-home duties, which it is great for, but it was fun getting to use the feature for something creative as well!

Here I’m going to share the supplies and steps to create the exact same display I made. But, at the end I have a few project notes and ideas I’ll share on ways you could customize this for different size spaces, or to cut down on the overall cost or use of power tools. Just options for all you DIYers out there!

Step One: Place the movie ticket stubs in the scanner portion of the printer. Press the “copy” display to print. Too easy! Repeat until you have printed all of the groups of stubs you plan to display.

Wait to cut out the grouping until you have your boards cut so you can make sure they will fit the exact size.

Step Two: Remove the sticker from the front of the plexi sample sheets. I’ve found the best method for removing sticky adhesives from acrylic or plexi is to spray a little WD-40 onto the area. Make sure the entire sticker (or adhesive area) is soaked. Allow that to sit for 20-30 minutes. Then peel back the sticker. If it tears, gently rub away any remaining pieces. Then wipe off the sheet with a clean cloth.

Step Three: Cut your boards to fit on the back of each plexi piece. If you don’t own a saw, you can usually have someone cut the lumber for you at the store. But typically you get charged per cut, and since we are making 20 total pieces, this could get pricey. So I recommend cutting it yourself if possible. Then sand the edges of each piece, removing any rough spots.

Step Four: Now cut out your ticket stub prints to fit the board pieces exactly. Remember that we are only adding ticket stub images to the inside of the plexi pieces that are transparent. The solid ones won’t show through, so those are just to add to the overall look of our display.

Step Five: Assemble the pieces. You’re looking to add the plexi to the top of the wood and screw in place. Screw tight enough so the plexi will not move around from the wood, but not so tight that you cause any cracks in the surface. Also, the plexi comes with a piece of paper on the back of each piece—this is to protect it. Remove this first before screwing into place. Once you’ve assembled all the pieces, you are ready to hang with command strips (use a level!).

Project Notes:

-The cost of this project (not including tools) is right around $60. I used both solid and transparent plexi pieces because I wanted my overall display to fill the space above my record player. If you wanted to make a smaller display, and also cut the cost of this project nearly in half, then just use the transparent pieces only and only buy one board and 8-10 screws.

-If you don’t want to use wood for the backs of your plexi pieces, you could use white or black foam core board instead. This would be cheaper, as well as easy to cut with an X-Acto knife or box cutter so you wouldn’t need power tools. Instead of screws, you could use heavy duty gold or brass looking push pins to hold the pieces together along with glue dots. I wanted my display to be a little more substantial, so I went with wood, but this is another option/idea if you need.

-I used command strips to hang my display pieces. This would be what I’d recommend for renters. Even though I own my home, I know myself well enough that I know I like to move things around and change up the art and photos in my house fairly often. So I like using command strips for smaller pieces like this, or when I’m hanging a lot in one area (like this photo display) so I don’t have to put so many holes in the wall from nails. But, you could certainly add picture hanger hardware to the backs of the wood and hang with nails if you prefer.

-The plexi samples I used can be found here and here. There are probably other options available online or you might have a plexi manufacturer in your city, but this is where I bought mine.

This is so cute! I love how substantial the wood looks. This is one of those ideas I never would have thought of in a million years. And I’m a huge believer in common strips. I have frames ALL over my walls and only one particular thing required a hole in the wall. They work well, so why not?!

Yep-me too! I just save them and then eventually I thought of something to use them in. I’m gonna keep saving ours still as I may do something else with them again some day. We just love seeing movies together so it’s kind of fun. 🙂

I love this idea, but the wood and plexiglass part confuses me – wouldn’t it be easier (not to mention cheaper and less labor-intensive) to just scan the stubs in and then print them on colored copy paper? Maybe I’m missing something, though…

Love this! I save tickets from anything “special” I’ve been to: a movie with my parents, a play that really impacted me, a ballet that was moving, a concert I particularly enjoyed, a train ticket from a great trip. I’ve been doing this for years and pinning them to my inspiration board, and while I enjoy doing it this way, they do fade pretty quickly over time, so I like that there is a sense of permanence to this project.

I’ve been curious about this printer almost as long as you guys have been using it on the site: does it handle non-photo documents well? Or do you keep a separate printer for “standard” printing and just use this one for photos?

I like this, Emma! Movie tickets are one thing I’ve been saving my entire life. I have my first movie stubs (I’m 20 so they’re not very old…late 90’s/early 2000’s) all the way to present and I keep looking for some kind of way to display/keep them! I actually never thought of scanning and reprinting them! Thanks for the fresh idea 🙂